Colour Me In
by RhondaStar
Summary: Drabble. Carson has a sleepless night as he wakes thinking of Elsie and what might've been.


_Having a fanfic day! Shamelessly inspired by the gorgeous Damien Rice song 'Colour Me In' which I just love for Carson. and suggest listening to as you read because it's just beautiful. His dreams make him reflect on his life. A bit angsty for me (I much prefer them happy) but please let me know what you think x R._

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><p><strong>Colour Me In<strong>

He wakes sometimes, painfully, his ribs barely containing his heart as it pounds in his chest. He is raw. Throat tight. Scared to breathe. Scared to move.

He wakes sometimes thinking of her and always this reaction.

Fear. Loneliness. Regret and hatred combine. He hates her for making him feel this way. For making him dwell on the things he could have had – a wife, children, a home, freedom to speak. To breathe.

He hates her because she reminds him he's alive and he's human and there's things he wants that a stoic butler rooted in a fading age shouldn't need. Because he isn't human.

But Lord knows how he wants her on these nights. Winter nights when the ice is in his room, on the inner panes of glass and his small bed isn't large enough for his big heart, his big feelings. He wants to cover her in his bedclothes and hold her there forever.

And his mind won't stop turning. He could beat his head with balled fists and it wouldn't stop.

Does she want it too?

How does she sleep?

How does she lay?

How does her body fit into her equally small bed, on which side does she lay, facing the window or the door? How does she breathe in her sleep – softly, daintily, deep, laboured, panting, gasping… how does her skin feel in the darkness of the night?

His body reacts as men's bodies do and he hates that too because he can't stop it. Sometimes he dreams of crawling beneath her skin, inside her, consuming her as she does him. Owning her. Nothing more primal than that.

Groaning he turns and the bed creaks, he thumps his pillows and feels his heart constrict in his chest. One day he'll die and she'll probably be the one to find him and she'll weep over his body as women are meant to do.

But there'll be nothing between them. Not real. Not concrete.

Not a wedding ring to hang on a chain and remind her of the days she was a wife. Not even a kiss to replay.

In the days he watches her work. He always has. She's as dedicated and detached as he is. They focus on getting the job done – she was once all rigid lines and angular shapes; now she's soft and curved and he wanted to squash her tight against him – her breasts against his chest, through the stiffness of his starched shirts.

He has useless dreams. Wasted, useless dreams of loving her.

_"__Come let me love you. Come let me in."_

And he finds her somewhere. Out amongst the memories of joy and sadness, intermingling. He isn't a simple man, not really, not beneath it all, a myriad of conflicting emotions and fragments of choices he should have made scatter around his body like fraying edges flapping in the wind. Though no one would ever know.

His problem is he tries to control things. And now there's nothing left to control.

Time has come and gone and so have the souls who once dwelled there. Yet he remains. Like some useless figurine in the ballroom – waiting to be dusted, to be coloured in. All black and white.

Old and withered.

Then he finds her. On long, empty corridors. At night he remembers how she looked as she walked. The swish of her dress as she'd turn corners. The elegance of her fingers as she poured tea in the afternoon in his pantry. He hears the sound of the material as if she were there with him, unhooking the dress, the fall of the skirt, the dip in the bed as she climbs in beside him, her hand, those same elegant fingers trailing over his back, over his arm and she'd hold him fast against her. Warm him. Keep him alive.

Her shadow falls upon him in the bed.

He closes his eyes, wants to keep it there for longer, the dream.

All the useless things still exist inside his heart – hushed and made to sit in the corner – words he might've said if he'd been a little braver, a little stronger, had more time.

His breathing straightens out and he dares himself to open his eyes. The room is empty. The wind still blows outside. Ice still decorates the windows. He's still alone.

The pain remains as the dream fades. He can still feel it – she affects him as physically as she does emotionally – and he still hates her for that. Hates her for making him love; love is painful and he wishes to be done with it.

He thinks it's too late to tell her she has his heart. Too late to tell her she was the only one.

That they could have lived a life of colour.

He doesn't realise that on the other side of the door, a short way down the corridor she wakes from her dream of being cradled in strong arms to find her bed alone. And she hates him for not being there and taking away the sting.


End file.
